Breakfast at Tarantino

Excellent coffee, Italian-style eggs and a slew of fresh, savory salads – the perfect way to start the day.

By GLORIA DEUTSCH
Tarantino Italian restaurant, Tel Aviv (photo credit: Courtesy)
Tarantino Italian restaurant, Tel Aviv
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s would have been nice, but for the time being we had breakfast at Tarantino, a chain of Italian restaurants with a kosher dairy eatery perched above the busy Ayalon on the second floor of the Azrieli Shopping Center in Tel Aviv.
After a busy shopping spree and some intensive retail therapy, Tarantino is a great place to take a load off your feet and relax in a friendly atmosphere, where owner Sagiv Arias and the young wait staff give customers a warm welcome.
The full breakfast (NIS 59) is very substantial and is served until 12:30 p.m., making it a totally acceptable early lunch. The menu has some items not normally associated with breakfast and are all the more welcome for that.
Firstly, the all-important coffee is excellent – strong, flavorful and made with fresh milk. None of that embalming fluid long-life milk at Tarantino.
While my companion and I studied the menu, the waitress brought us a selection of salads and dips, with a wonderful grain- encrusted crispy baguette. The selection included tomato butter made with sun-dried tomatoes, chunky vegetable-enhanced tuna, small black pitted olives, pickled lemon, a mild curd cheese and multi-colored cherry tomatoes in a basil-flavored salad.
All were tasty, well-flavored and not drowning in oil.
The two main choices on the breakfast menu are eggs done in a variety of ways or a pastry filled with various savory fillings. The eggs come with a variety of Italian accompaniments and have authentic-sounding Italian names.
Siciliana is made with diced eggplant, tomatoes and feta; Funghi is a variety of mushrooms; or you can pick the Four-Cheese omelette with some favorite Italian cheeses.
The pastry, which has the filling baked inside, comes with a fried egg and offers similar possibilities with a variety of additions such as artichoke or fried onion.
I was delighted to note that the food, when it arrived, was piping hot – in my opinion, a great asset to the enjoyment.
The two main dishes were accompanied by a finely cut cubed Israeli salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, lightly salted and flavored with lemon juice and a minimal amount of oil.
“Everything is freshly made as it is ordered,” says Arias. “We use only the best ingredients, with top-quality olive oil imported from Italy.” The owner says he is also working on upgrading the atmosphere of the restaurant.
While breakfast is served until 12:30 p.m., business lunches are also served. And in the evening, Arias says he likes to turn down the lights a little to make the place more romantic. The background music, which is never loud, is pleasant and often Italian.
To end our meal on a sweet note, we had the delicious bread with homemade plum jam and butter. And, of course, another cup of that outstanding coffee.
The writer was a guest of the restaurant.
Tarantino Kosher dairy Azrieli Shopping Center, 2nd floor, Tel Aviv Sun-Thurs. 9 a.m.–10:30 p.m.
Fri. 9 a.m.– 3:30 p.m. Closed Saturday.
Tel: (03) 609-3877